"Are you really willing?"
Seeing Xia Kening dressed in an orange cartoon-patterned short-sleeved shirt and still wearing the same denim shorts as yesterday, Song Yunshen felt a surge of excitement as he imagined her in a cosplay outfit.
He's never been to a comic convention, partly because he doesn't have the time, and partly because he's rather lazy.
Even during summer vacation, I would stay at home if I could, and absolutely would not go out.
Normally, if Xu Zhuoyue hadn't come to his doorstep in person to invite him to come out of retirement, he wouldn't even play basketball.
So now that he had the chance to see a beautiful girl in a cosplay outfit, Song Yunshen was naturally tempted.
But Xia Kening blinked, then suddenly grinned mischievously and said, "No problem, but you'll have to beg me like I did yesterday. Oh, and by the way, you have to say it via WeChat voice message until I'm satisfied."
"Never mind then." Song Yunshen's excitement was immediately dampened by these words, and he said seriously, "I suddenly feel that getting a hundred points on an English test isn't so difficult after all."
"Hey, I didn't ask you to do anything." Xia Kening got anxious when she saw him give up so easily, without even trying. "Why don't you have any perseverance?"
"Hehe." Song Yunshen rested his chin on his hand and tilted his head to look at her. "Do you think I can't see through your little schemes? You're quite competitive, aren't you? You're thinking about how to make up for what you've lost, aren't you?"
"Hmph!" Xia Kening snorted. "Then I'll definitely keep my word. Just beg me, and I won't stand you up."
"Oh, really?" Song Yunshen raised an eyebrow, then took out his phone and said while operating it, "Actually, I have another idea."
"What?"
"I just set an alarm, please wait a moment." Song Yunshen smiled slightly, placed his phone on the table, and turned the alarm volume to maximum.
Xia Kening looked at his phone with a puzzled expression. After a little over half a minute, Song Yunshen's phone screen suddenly lit up.
The next second, the alarm clock rang.
"Brother~ Please----"
"Ah!!!" Xia Kening exclaimed, instantly displaying the extreme hand speed of a young person, and turned off his alarm clock in a flash.
But the noise was still quite loud, and people around turned to look at her, their faces full of confusion. Xia Kening immediately buried her head in her arms, only her angry eyes showing, and muttered through gritted teeth, "What are you doing! Are you trying to kill me?!"
"How about we exchange this voice message for a cosplay session?" Song Yunshen Shen chuckled threateningly.
"You, you—" Xia Kening's face flushed red, too angry to speak, "You scoundrel! You rogue! You you you—"
Seeing her adorable expression, Song Yunshen couldn't resist and chuckled as he reached out to pinch her cheek, "Still trying to play tricks on me? Don't you realize the difference in our skill levels?"
"You just like to bully me." Xia Kening pouted. Of course, she knew that Song Yunshen's threat was just a joke, but she still angrily slapped his thieving hand away.
The two of them ate breakfast and joked around, and after they finished eating, Song Yunshen took her home.
When he arrived at the door, he glanced at Xia Kening's orange short-sleeved shirt, then reached into the shoe cabinet, took out the pair of orange slippers he had bought the night before, and placed them at Xia Kening's feet.
You can wear these from now on.
"Huh?" Xia Kening had just taken off her shoes, her white socks swaying on the clean carpet. She looked down at the new slippers. "I don't think we had these before. I remember your slippers for guests were always gray, weren't they?"
"Those were all bought by my dad," Song Yunshen said. "I just bought these yesterday; they'll be your exclusive slippers from now on."
"Wow, they even have special slippers!" Xia Kening happily put on the slippers. "Actually, you could have worn the old slippers too."
"Shut up your lip before you say that. You clearly like it." Song Yunshen glanced at her, chuckled, turned around, changed into his own light blue slippers, and walked through the door.
"It just so happens to be a color I like," Xia Kening huffed, stubbornly insisting, "How did you know I like orange?"
"Just a guess." Song Yunshen glanced at the orange phone case in Xia Kening's hand and smiled mysteriously. "Tell me if it's accurate or not."
"You're pretty good, okay?" Xia Kening followed her into the house, then closed the door and immediately ran into the study. "Where's the computer switch? I want to play games!"
"There's a button on the main unit below, just press it." Song Yunshen first went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of cold drink, then got Xia Kening a bottle of room temperature yogurt, and then took out an ice cream before heading towards the study.
"Thank you~" Xia Kening took the yogurt from Song Yunshen, her two feet curled up on the chair, covered by white socks.
Song Yunshen's gaze was drawn to her pair of fair and chubby little legs. He glanced at her little feet, then immediately looked away. While stuffing an ice cream into his mouth, he reached out and grabbed the mouse to help her open the screen recording software.
Next, Genshin Impact will be activated!
"Go ahead and play. Ask me if you don't understand anything." Song Yunshen took out the English vocabulary homework Xia Jinshu had given him last night. "I'm going to start studying now."
"Are you serious?" Xia Kening looked shocked when she saw him actually pull out a vocabulary list. "I thought you were just saying it casually."
"I always take bets very seriously. Wouldn't it be disrespectful to you if I didn't give it my all?" Song Yunshen chuckled. "You go ahead and play your game."
"You're making me feel so guilty," Xia Kening pouted. "If my family knew I snuck out to play games, they'd kill me."
"Why didn't you say this when I told you I'd bring you to play games?" Song Yunshen rolled his eyes at her. "Didn't you tell your mom you were coming to my house to play?"
"I'll definitely say I'm going to the library with my classmates," Xia Kening said guiltily. "Otherwise, my family definitely won't agree to me coming to a boy's house alone. What if you bully me?"
"Oh ho." Song Yunshen. "What? Aren't you afraid yourself?"
"You touched me all over when you showered last time, and you still have the nerve to say that!" Xia Kening said through gritted teeth, "It's already like that, what else is there to say?"
"Alright, alright." Hearing her bring it up, Song Yunshen couldn't help but replay the incident in his mind, severely affecting his study. "Go do your thing."
Xia Kening didn't say anything more. At this moment, the computer screen had already loaded the game, and she was immediately attracted by the screen.
"Speaking of which, there's a super huge Hilichurl inside, holding a shield. What if I can't beat it?" Xia Kening suddenly remembered the problem she encountered this morning and turned to Song Yunshen to ask, "My sword barely does any damage when it hits its shield."
Didn't they give you a new character when you were playing through the story yesterday?
"Ah?"
"Look at the right side of the screen, aren't there two avatars? Try pressing the '2' above 'W'."
"Oh, okay." Xia Kening immediately did as instructed, only to find that the character she was controlling had switched. "Wow! Can I control other characters too?"
"When you play, you control a team, which can hold up to four characters. The buttons at the top, 1, 2, 3, and 4, are for switching characters," Song Yunshen explained simply. "If you hold down the attack button with a character, her bow and arrow will charge up, and the arrows will be fire-attribute, capable of setting shields on fire."
"Wow~" Xia Kening has a strong learning ability; she immediately mastered the technique, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "So that's how you do it! This is so much fun~"
Seeing her happy expression, Song Yunshen couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head, feeling a little envious.
The more games you play, the harder it is to rediscover the pure mindset Xia Kening had when she first started playing games.
It would be great if we could erase all memories of fun games and play them all over again.
With that thought in mind, Song Yunshen composed himself and shifted his attention back to English words.
To demonstrate his serious attitude, he even took a photo and sent it to Xia Jinshu.
[ Xia Jinshu ]: Keep it up! If you can pass the afternoon spot checks every day for a week, I might consider giving you a small reward.
Upon seeing this, Song Yunshen immediately perked up, raised his eyebrows, and replied promptly.
[ Song Yunshen ]: What reward, Teacher Xia?
[ Xia Jinshu ]: I haven't thought about it yet. If you need anything, you can tell me, but it can't be anything too expensive, I can't afford it.
[ Song Yunshen ]: There's no need for physical gifts. I don't lack anything, so why should Teacher Xia spend money on me?
[ Xia Jinshu ]: So what do you want?
[ Song Yunshen ]: I haven't decided yet. How about we talk about it after I've done it?
You can't rush things like this; you have to take it one step at a time, or you'll scare people away.
Song Yunshen rolled his eyes, chatting with Xia Jinshu Shu while opening Taobao and quickly ordering several posters.
[ Xia Jinshu ]: Sure, let's talk about it next Sunday. You should start memorizing vocabulary first.
[ Song Yunshen ]: Okay.
After the conversation, Song Yunshen immediately sat up straight, his eyes becoming serious, and he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the great cause of memorizing vocabulary.
To be fair, Song Yunshen's learning ability is not bad.
While English wasn't my strongest subject in junior high, it wasn't as bad as it is now.
On a test out of 120, getting a little over 100 is barely acceptable.
However, after some things went wrong, his English plummeted, while his science grades remained consistently good because the problems were more fun to solve.
If he really puts his mind to it, this vocabulary level isn't particularly difficult for him.
It took about an hour, during which he even tried to recite it from memory. After confirming that there were no problems, Song Yunshen put away his textbook and moved his chair to sit next to Xia Kening.
Seeing that he had finished his work, Xia Kening immediately started chattering, asking all sorts of questions. The storyline had already progressed to dealing with three temples.
With Song Yunshen accompanying him, it quickly came to 11:00 AM.
Xia Kening reluctantly logged out of her account, letting out a long sigh, "I really want to keep playing~"
"Take your time playing. You'll see how boring it gets later when the downtime starts." Song Yunshen saved the screen recording, then escorted Xia Kening to her doorstep. "You'll have to come back tomorrow evening."
"Can't you come in the morning?" Xia Kening asked expectantly. "I'm not going to steal anything from your house."
"Don't even think about it." Song Yunshen poked her forehead in an annoyed tone. "It's not good for you to be so addicted. You should do more homework and review your lessons in the morning. If your grades drop when school starts, I won't let you play anymore."
"How could my grades not drop at the start of the semester!" Xia Kening exploded upon hearing this, "You're the one who scored so low in my science subjects!"
"My persistence, my accumulation!" Song Yunshen's expression was solemn, his tone hesitant, his gaze fixed, and he raised his hand.
Xia Kening angrily punched his chest with her little fists. "Don't say it! Don't say it! Shut up!!!"
"Alright, alright." Song Yunshen scurried away for a moment, then reached out and grabbed her two small fists. "Hurry up and go back. We'll compare your grades on the first day of school with your midterms this semester. You can't let them drop."
"I-I know—" Xia Kening felt the warmth of Song Yunshen, hurriedly pulled her hand back, her cheeks slightly flushed, and quickly turned around and went back to the door, hurriedly changing her shoes. "Then I'll go back first, bye-bye."
"Let me know when you get home." Song Yunshen followed her out, pressed the elevator button for her, and watched Xia Kening leave.
Then Song Yunshen walked straight towards his uncle's house across the street.
Just then, his phone vibrated, so Song Yunshen took it out and glanced at it.
[ Xia Yunuo ]: I'm getting ready for lunch.
[ Xia Yunuo ]: We'll leave at 12:30.
[ Song Yunshen ]: Okay, keep it up. I have a surprise for you.
[ Xia Yunuo ]: Huh? What?
[ Song Yunshen ]: You'll find out soon enough.
Song Yunshen smiled, looking completely in control.
When Xia Yunuo saw the news at home, she smiled slightly, thinking to herself, how could she not know what kind of surprise it was?
Song Yunshen will definitely be waiting for her at his uncle's house later.
I'll have to pretend to be very surprised then, so he doesn't find out that I already knew about this.
As Xia Yunuo was secretly plotting this in her heart, Xia Jinshu's voice came from the kitchen.
" Xiao Nuo, come and take the plate."
"Oh, coming." Xia Yunuo hurried into the kitchen, picking up a plate as she said, "Sis, I made plans with my classmates to go to the library with them this afternoon."
"Oh." Xia Jinshu smiled, her understanding perfectly clear. "I understand."
Watching Xia Yunuo leave the kitchen, Xia Jinshu's eyes flickered.
She wondered what Xiao Nuo's expression would be if she knew that her tutor was Song Yunshen.
Hmm... If Song Yunshen really lays a hand on me, what's the best way to tell Xiao Nuo what he's really like?
Xia Jinshu pondered this possibility and found herself in a rather difficult position.
I hope Song Yunshen really is a good person.